First of all, I would like to thank all the participants for attending this Live Meeting, I’ve stated that there will be more events s such organized by “SystemCenter.gr: The Greek SystemCenter User Group” and I will keep my promise for sure!

SystemCenter.gr will be operational until the End of May 2011, more details about it’s content and progress in a next blog post, this blog’s content will also get mirrored in there and there will be cross posts between them.

So allow me to sum up about the Live Meeting and to clarify some questions posed.

There were about 67 participants, a very low amount of <7% had listening issues but after a post event check I’ve made with a friend that participated he stated that everything was smooth and the sound was OK (Thanks to Anestis Psomas!), the amount of participants stabilized at 45 for the 60’ out of 75’ total runtime, I must say that I’m very pleased from the participation.

I was puzzled from the strange voting participation, however a participant (John Priovolos) stated that polls were not available for some of them, at least not all of them…

Onto the questions:

1) FEP 2010: How do you update branch points, would you recommend a local WSUS Server for them?

To be more precise I have to know what kind of Branch Points we’re referring to, are they already BDPs (Branch Distribution Points) that reside on a branch Client PC? Or they have a server in place for other roles as File Servicing?

My answer was that a local UNC path can be used for this scenario but it will need two things:

a) A script that downloads the update from the malware protection center for the Network Inspection and the Malware Definitions.

b) This should be enclosed in a scheduled task and update regularly from the MPC, then copy the files to the remote UNC Path.

About the second part of the question, if I recommend the installation of a local WSUS Server, then I have to say that it depends, as I said we are using WSUS the classic way to auto-approve and download FEP Definitions, so this is more of a one way route if you want to use WSUS, however it needs a Server O/S installed but keep in mind that:

a) It doesn’t cost you a penny to install a secondary site because you have this right with the purchase of Configuration Manager.

b) Setting up a Software Update Point is a trivial task as long as you have installed WSUS and haven’t configured it initially.

c) WSUS is an easy task too to accomplish, just do it as the second step of the checklist.

d) Do yourself a favor and use SQL Express (which is free too) as the Database host for WSUS, you’ll see that it’s a wise choice when you need to manage the DB or migrate/move it somewhere else, avoid using Windows Internal Database as it is not easily managed and may cause you numerous troubles.

Hmmm 2 free products and one without additional cost of the initial purchase is make you feel good right?

2) Do you believe that Configuration Manager may transition to the Cloud?

Well this one was a tough question! I really don’t know but I have a suspicion that it is already used in the Azure Platform already… However no hand on fire for that.

I really don’t know if we’ll ever see Configuration Manager as a SAS but I’ll ask the Product Group what they have in mind -I may not be able to answer yet due to our NDA restrictions though-

Again, thank you all for participating! When the recording is available it will be published here and in the Techdays.gr site.

See you soon in SystemCenter.gr and a more technical Live Meeting (the ones I like most).